Glass City Flight offers training school at airport

Toledo now has a flight training school for the first time in 20 years with the opening of Glass City Flight at Toledo Express Airport. Although training can be obtained through area flying clubs and Bowling Green State University’s aviation program, the next closest structured training school of its kind is in Wauseon.

“I know when I trained I didn’t want to go an hour to fly,” said Scott Frost, owner and general manager. “Toledo really only has flight clubs, and BGSU has the school. I did it through a flying club, but it wasn’t as structured as a flying school can and should be. Most people have the interest in learning to fly, and they don’t want to go back to the university.”

The most noticeable benefit of training at Toledo Express is its size, offering the use of its control tower, crossing runways and a lot more aircraft activity than smaller airports, Frost said. Flexibility is another key factor, where teaching can be offered on a variety of days and times, and on a pay as you go basis.

“Our students are career-based individuals that want flexibility in their schedule,” Frost said. “We all remember the days of college, those are set days and times.”

Frost estimates the total cost of schooling is around $7,500 and can last three to 12 months, which is a big difference when it comes to the time and cost of a four-year college education. As such, Frost expects to draw clientele from the regular working business world and high school students who can’t afford or don’t want the full college experience.

Glass City Flight’s certified flight instructor Justin Harnden said a career in aviation is a wise move.

“There’s a shortage of pilots,” Harnden said. “Aviation is going to be on the rise.”

Both Frost and Harnden note that aviation is strong in the area. Toledo has the benefit of a decent-sized airport, home of the Ohio Air National Guard’s 180th Fighter Wing, and BGSU’s aviation program is widely recognized as one of the finest in the state

For those interested in learning to fly, there’s no quick fix or instant jump to larger planes; it all starts with single engine, four-seat planes like the Beechcraft Sundowner offered through Glass City Flight.

“Everybody has to start somewhere,” Harnden said. “And this is the beginning of the journey. No matter what, you still have start in a basic training flight program.

Glass City Flight offers an introduction flight for $100, and Frost has already sold some packages for upcoming Father’s Day gifts. The introduction presents a sample of what flying is like, including meeting with an instructor who will explain the basic principles of flight and controls, as well as a 30-45 minute excursion in the air.

Once someone is committed to the program, there are three major milestones to achieve while training: First, flying “solo” with a certified flight instructor; second, taking a written Federal Aviation Administration exam; and third, taking a final check ride to get the license.

“Basically, we teach the rules and regulations of the air,” Frost said

In general, flying single engine planes can reduce typical travel time by about half, but the fuel cost is roughly double that of a car. Still, when put in perspective, learning to fly offers a skill that can become a lifelong hobby or even a career.

“Flying a general aviation aircraft is like driving your own car,” Frost said. “Flying commercial is like boarding a Greyhound bus with wings.”

For more information, contact Glass City Flight at (419) 407-6101, or visit glasscityflight.com.

Treece Blog: Airport privatization: The case for change

Several years ago I was having lunch with an outgoing elected official. This person had — at a relatively young age — accomplished much in public service, and was retiring from elected office to focus on career and family. At our meeting I was given a valuable piece of advice, which has guided many of my efforts since then: If you aren’t willing to put your hat in the ring to try to make things better, then you have no right to complain about the decisions other people make or the results that follow.

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One day not very long after that meeting, my father and I were talking about broad issues affecting this region. Dad was lamenting — as he is wont to do — the state of Toledo’s airports: their underutilized state, their dilapidated facilities, their recent threats of restrictions due to air traffic control tower closures, and the general mismanagement that goes back decades. We talked about issues we thought were holding back this region’s airports (and the aviation industry in general) and their development.

What was said next, as it turns out, has become the source of much excitement, frustration and consternation as well as personal attacks.

What was said was that if things were so wrong with Toledo’s airports, we as citizens had a right and an obligation to explore opportunities and alternatives that might make them better.

After that talk, our due diligence began. We met with current and former Port Authority officials. We talked to people from the city, current and former airport tenants, and others who had explored various ideas previously. We did all of this to better understand the problems facing businesses at the airports, the users of both facilities, the city as their owner and the Port Authority as their public manager.

We also wanted to understand — in as much detail as possible — the various duties of an airport operator. What they do, what they are required to do, what they elect to do, how they do what they do and who performs specific functions were all items we needed to understand in depth. What we found was startling. First, a great many of the functions being performed by current operating staff were not required.

Almost all of those that were required could easily be scaled back or performed by independent contractors or outside providers.

Feasibility study

Two years ago, as talks progressed and our understanding of the airports became more and more detailed, we retained a consultant — one of the best aviation consultants in the world — to conduct a full market feasibility study for both airports. This study has enabled us to understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing both airports, the likelihood of turning them around under private-sector leadership and the odds and consequences of failure.

From our consultant, we also learned how the transition to a private operator should be structured to avoid the repayment of nearly $100 million in federal funds that were supplied for improvement projects at both airports over the past several decades. Consequently, we are better prepared to ensure that federal funds will be available for future improvements at both airports.

Developing a strategy

Now, having studied the issue comprehensively and having consulted with attorneys and experts, we have developed a strategy that will allow a private entity to step into the management role currently filled by the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority. We have found a way to transfer the control needed to attract business, help current businesses grow, run both airports profitably, provide greater benefits to the city as the owner of those facilities and get the public off the hook for tremendous outstanding debt in the form of unexpired federal grants.

Up until this point, everything we had done was purely for our own consumption. We wanted — and want — to ensure that we understand as much as possible about the potential alternatives for management of Toledo’s airports. All told, this due diligence process has been ongoing for more than three years and was conducted at our own expense.

To bring the community up to speed on our findings and to get a second opinion on our concept, we ultimately expanded our discussions to include officials from the Port Authority, city and nearby townships. We launched our website ToledoAirports.com in November as a source for up-to-date information and to provide a public forum to discuss the findings of our marketability study, as well as our own business histories and qualifications. Since most people know us for our investment advisory business, we want to make it apparent that we also have a diverse set of business interests and histories in a number of industries, which we think will enable us to be successful private managers of Toledo’s airports, should the city elect to consider an arrangement like the one we plan to propose.

Forum for debate

However, we still weren’t ready to roll out our plan in its entirety. By this time it was the fall of a local election year. There were races going on for the mayor’s office and several City Council seats. We had hoped that our concept for the airports wouldn’t become an election issue, because during elections it seems every issue becomes controversial. This project is far too important for this region to become a mere plank in someone’s political platform. There is far too much to consider for everything to be reduced down to a few talking points.

Now that Mayor D. Michael Collins and several new City Council members have taken office, the airport discussion has resumed and Councilman Rob Ludeman has extended us an invitation for a public hearing before City Council’s Economic Development Committee, which is precisely the forum where debate surrounding this issue belongs.

We hope, in our hearing(s), to have constructive talks with the city and any concerned members of the public. Our goal is to help them explore and understand some of the alternatives available to them for management of valuable, underutilized city facilities. We also intend for everyone — both city officials and ourselves — to walk away with a clear understanding of if and how the city may choose to pursue the alternatives we present. This may be done through a public request for proposals or letters of interest, or by entering into private negotiations.

If the city issues a request for proposals (RFP), it may receive some other bids. However, we can reasonably say we’ve discussed it with a number of the national firms likely to respond to such an RFP and any outside manager is going to charge the city a management fee.

Time to confirm

Since we have not and will not ask the city for such a fee, the city could theoretically negotiate with us directly. This would allow us the time to confirm our answers to a number of questions ranging from the impact on federal funds to the potential closure of the air traffic control tower at Toledo Express, while also permitting us to be far more open with the city in discussing potential tenants we have talked with, as well as plans for development of property at and around the airports.

In any project like the one we have been working on for Toledo’s airports, there are extensive moving parts. There are a number of issues to address, problems that arise and solutions that need to be found. Second and third opinions are always valuable, and it is important that all concerned parties have an intimate understanding of the facts. While we don’t want to do anything that won’t get approval from the FAA, we also want to make sure we have an arrangement that is financially feasible.

Our biggest hope is that hearings with City Council are a launch pad for the exploration and consideration of our proposal. We hope to share our findings with officials from the city and members of the public who are interested, and want everyone to walk away with a better understanding of the potential for positive change at Toledo’s airports.

Dock David Treece is a partner with Treece Investment Advisory Corp (www.TreeceInvestments.com) and is licensed with FINRA through Treece Financial Services Corp.

Treeces propose plan to operate Toledo Express Airport

Dock David Treece’s brain is whirring with possibilities, but he knows he needs to keep his feet firmly planted on the ground if his dream is ever going to take flight.

Toledo Express Airport is owned by the City of Toledo and is operated by the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority.

The Toledo native, along with his father Dock and brother Ben, is interested in taking over operation of Toledo’s airports from the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority.

Dock is president of Treece Investment Advisory Corp. and his sons are both partners in the family-owned and operated Toledo firm. The Treeces are also Toledo Free Press contributors. They have been researching the feasibility of their idea for the past three years, but started to get more serious this spring. This summer, they hired a consultant and have incurred “significant personal expenses.” They declined to name their consultant or his company, but described him as a world-renowned expert in aviation operations and airport privatization.

Toledo Express Airport and Toledo Executive Airport are owned by the City of Toledo and have been operated by the Port Authority since 1973. Under its current lease, the Port is set to operate the airports through February 2023.

The Treeces would operate the airports as two new entities: Toledo Airport Operations Company and Toledo Airport Facilities Company. They estimate they are a couple of weeks from submitting an official proposal.

“If we can do what we say we can do, it would be very profitable,” Dock said. “We’re not a charitable organization. If we can’t do what we say we can do, we’re going to lose $650,000 next year. But we think we can do some things differently and we think we can attract some business and we’re willing to risk our money to do it.”

Native sons

Dock, a Tennessee native, has lived in Toledo since the mid-1970s. His sons were both born in Toledo. They graduated from Sylvania Northview High School before attending the University of Miami in Florida, where they graduated with bachelor’s degrees in business administration. Dock David focused on finance while Ben focused on international finance and marketing.

“Ben and I decided, both of us independently, that we were coming back to Toledo after college and since we got back we have been wholeheartedly on Team Toledo,” Dock David said. “We want to see Toledo succeed. We want to do anything we can to help this region grow and develop.”

Although none have airport management experience, the elder Treece has been a licensed pilot for 30 years and has owned an aircraft leasing company and air ambulance. He currently owns and flies one small private plane he uses for business.

“I’ve been in and around aviation for over 30 years,” Dock said. “I’ve been involved in a lot of different facets of the industry so I am not a neophyte in the aviation industry, although I have never owned or operated an airport.”

Addressing a criticism that he and his sons don’t have the technical expertise to operate an airport, Dock bristles slightly.

“The Port board doesn’t either, from that standpoint,” Dock said. “I’m a businessman. I’ve been in business all my life. If I don’t know something, if I don’t know how to do something, I know how to hire people who do.”

“It’s like arguing you can’t hire someone to be a hospital administrator because what do they know about open heart surgery?” Dock David added.

Innovation

From left, Dock Treece, Ben Treece and Dock David Treece. The three men intend to submit a plan to privatize operations of two Toledo-owned airports. Toledo Free Press photo and cover photo by Michael Nemeth

Some eyebrows have been raised at the age of the Treece brothers — Dock David is 26, Ben is 25 — but their father said he feels their youth is an asset.

“If you look at history, you’ll find that innovation comes from young people,” Dock said. “Innovation doesn’t come from old people. We fought the battles. We know where all the land mines are. To do anything exciting in life, you can’t know where the land mines are. If you do, you stay out of the field.”

Dock said he has been critical of Toledo’s airport operations since at least the 1980s.

“When Dock [David] came back from college and we started lamenting about the problems, he said, ‘Well, why don’t we do something about it?’ and I said, ‘You know what? I’ve fought that battle for years. I don’t think there’s anything that can be done, but if you want to chase it, chase it.’ So I’ve supported him all along the way, both financially and emotionally, and with ideas and wisdom, I think. But it’s his deal. He’s put it together.”

Mayor Mike Bell, who will be out of office in January after losing to challenger D. Michael Collins in the Nov. 5 election, said it would be “irresponsible” not to at least consider their proposal.

“We don’t have what their plan is going to be so we’re just going to have to wait and see what it is. It could be something great or it may not be something that works. We’ll just have to wait and see,” Bell said Nov. 4. “In trying to be proactive you should look at everything.”

Bell said either way he’s pleased local investors are interested because it shows they care.

“I have an appreciation that businesspeople in the area are at least trying to figure out how to get engaged in helping Toledo and Northwest Ohio,” Bell said. “If we have those types of people starting to buy in and putting their money into plans that means they have confidence we can turn this place around and that’s a good thing for Toledo and Northwest Ohio.”

On Oct. 30, during a live Toledo Free Press/Toledo News Now debate televised on FOX Toledo, Collins said he would be open to the possibility.

“An airport is crucial to be able to develop our area,” Collins said. “New energy may be necessary to kickstart [it].”

Early emails

Dock David first reached out to Port President and CEO Paul Toth regarding the airport on Dec. 10, 2010. Toth said he was and is somewhat skeptical, but that the Port is open to discussion and will support whatever the city decides.

“We’ve seen some good successes at the airport, but frankly we’re in the shadows of Detroit Metro so it’s constantly a struggle,” Toth said. “We are still looking forward to having some more clarity on what the Treeces have in mind and look forward to continuing those discussions.”

‘Circumventing’ Council

On March 28, Dock David reached out to Dean Monske, president and CEO of the Regional Growth Partnership, requesting “urban renewal/redevelopment plans” passed by City Council. Monske referred him to Deputy Mayor for External Affairs and Economic Development Paul Syring.

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The Treeces said a sentence in one of Dock David’s emails to Syring about circumventing City Council was taken out of context.

In an April 1 email to Syring, Dock David wrote: “We’re just trying to explore as many different options as are available for working out a deal on the airport with minimal involvement from city council. For that reason, I thought I may find items of interest in urban renewal/redevelopment plans already passed by council, which may allow us to circumvent or more easily navigate various parts of the process.”

“There was no intent of cutting City Council out of the agreement,” Dock said. “What we were doing was saying, ‘Listen, if we’re going to operate the airport, we have to have the ability to bring in people and sell them property to build a facility.’ If down the road we get somebody who wants to put in a facility, we don’t have time to drag everything through City Council to make a decision about whether or not we’re going to sell them a piece of property. We have to have the ability to execute that in a timely manner. We know of three or four deals that have died out there because that ability did not exist with the operator.”

“I want to cross my T’s and dot my I’s, but I know whatever we put together, when it comes before [City Council], I want it to come before them once. I don’t want to have to come back in front of them every time we want to do anything,” Dock David added.

‘Time kills all deals’

Dock said Toledo Express has a reputation within the aviation community of being slow and difficult to work with.

“The reputation within the industry about Toledo Express Airport is not one where someone wants to come and start a business,” Dock said. “As our aviation consultant told us, ‘Time kills all deals.’”

Toth conceded that private business can move faster than public entities, but said the Port Authority recognizes its “responsibility to be pro-business and to move quickly.”

“We still do our due diligence, but we’ve been able to move very quickly as it relates to business opportunities,” Toth said.

Although the Treeces weren’t yet planning to go public when the story broke Oct. 30, Dock David said he has received an overwhelmingly positive response to the news and the attention has helped generate more interest. Within hours, he said, aviation-specific websites were abuzz.

“There was clearly excitement about people understanding this was a possibility,” he said. “It got a lot of people talking about this issue and starting to think about it, which was a good thing.”

“It only pushed the timeline up about two weeks,” Dock added. “Unfortunately, it became a political issue, which we didn’t want it to be because it’s too important for the region to be a political issue.”

Transition

A lengthy transition period would likely be needed.

Toth estimated the transition process would take six to 10 months.

“We would need to work with the Port Authority to understand what processes and procedures they have in place and that’s to say nothing of sitting down with the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) to make sure we don’t violate any of the conditions of those loans and grants that we have been given so that neither the city nor the Port Authority nor us are asked to repay several million dollars in loans and grants that were given potentially 20 years ago for a capital improvement project,” Dock David said.

“It would not be instantaneous, where City Council passes a resolution and the Port Authority hands us the keys on the way out the door and tells us the alarm code. It’s a little bit more complicated than that.”

Deficits

Toledo’s regional amenities — its access to the Great Lakes and the crossing of Interstates 80, 90 and 75 and its location within 500 miles of 60 percent of the North American population — allowed Toledo Express to flourish during peak economic conditions. But when economic conditions soured, airport activity dried up.

From the skyrocketing price of jet fuel that has hurt the 50-seat regional jet market to the numerous airline mergers to federal deregulation, the aviation industry has seen many changes during the past 40 years, Toth said.

“It’s a matter of sheer economics,” Toth said. “It’s not a matter of how well you manage or anything else. It’s just a matter of pure economics of the industry.”

Toth said the Port is projecting a loss of about $300,000 at the airport for 2013, similar to last year.

“We’ve reduced some of our staffing and leased a couple of hangars out that hadn’t been leased, so we’re doing about $375,000 better than our budget,” Toth said.

The airport has been in the red since 2011.

However, since 2001, the airport has generated $14.6 million in net operating revenue, for an average of $1.2 million per year. The most profitable recent year was 2002, when Port records show a net operating revenue of nearly $2.5 million.

“Every hangar we have out there at the airport is full, which wasn’t true four or five years ago,” Toth said. “We feel pretty good about the fact that there’s really no space available out there at the airport.”

The makeup of the Port Authority board has also changed, from several members with pilot’s licenses or aviation backgrounds to mainly bankers, Dock said, but Toth said he doesn’t feel that’s an issue.

“Being a pilot doesn’t necessarily give you aviation experience other than flying an airplane, so I don’t think that is a detriment to our board or our organization,” Toth said. “We reach out, we hire experts and consultants to help us think through things and implement things. I think we’ve done a great job of managing through some difficult times in the aviation industry.”

Dock David said he would be interested in maintaining ties with the Port.

“We don’t want to kick them out of the airport and never welcome them back,” Dock David said. “They’ve done a lot of things exceedingly well and we want to help them do the things they’ve been very good at doing. We actually hope to form a long-term partnership to help bring the Port Authority into finance development of facilities for companies at the airport that we can attract to Northwest Ohio.”

Among the business interests the Treeces said they have heard from or would pursue include current businesses at the airport looking to expand, defense contractors, plane refurbishers, maintenance facilities, refueling stations, pilot training programs and a school that wants to start an aviation program.

The Treeces insist the plan they are developing will not involve any firings — and may even add jobs.

“Our plan is to use the operations to attract business, which will create jobs,” Dock David said.

The Treeces said they would also look for inefficiencies.

“Fuel farms are a great example. There are a lot out there and it was set up in a segmented, ad hoc way,” Dock David said. “Why have seven fuel farms when you can have a smaller number, more cooperation among the tenants out there, fewer EPA inspections, less insurance?”

One undertapped market is business travelers, Dock said.

“People who are very sensitive to cost, not time, will use Detroit because Detroit will be cheaper but time-consuming,” Dock said. “People who are sensitive to the value of time more than they are to dollars, there is a marketplace for those people in Toledo.”

180th Fighter Wing

The Ohio Air National Guard 180th Fighter Wing should not be affected by a change in operator, Dock said.

“What would happen to the 180th is not up to us, and it’s not up to the City or the Port Authority either. It’s up to the military,” Dock said. “We would do everything we could politically and practically to keep the 180th, but in 2015 when the next BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) closings come, 180th could well be an issue.

“You have to look at what’s going on in the bigger picture. That’s what no one seems to do. The military is transitioning away from using fighters and toward using drones. We’ve done nothing out here to attract the drone industry and if the fighters go away, what have you got? There is literally nobody looking down the road and saying, ‘Where are things going and why are they going there?’ There are a lot of things we could be doing, I think, to bring new aviation industry to this area that I don’t see anybody doing.”

FAA Pilot Program

The majority of U.S. airports are operated by a public entity like a city, port authority or county, Toth said. A few are operated through a management agreement with a third-party private entity, generally accompanied by a hefty management fee.

“We’ve asked for none of that. We haven’t asked for a management fee and we’ve agreed to indemnify the city and the taxpayers against almost three-quarters of a million dollars in losses,” Dock said.

In 1996, the FAA established its Airport Privatization Pilot Program. The program permits up to 10 public airport sponsors to “sell or lease an airport with certain restrictions, and to exempt the sponsor from certain federal requirements,” according to FAA.gov.

“We’re aware of the FAA privatization program,” Dock David said. “We’ve tried to structure our proposal to give us the flexibility to try to get into that program, which is a time-consuming process, if we choose to go that route in the future. However, it’s not our plan at present.”

The only airport currently operating under the program is Luís Muñoz Marín International Airport. The airport is owned by the Puerto Rico Ports Authority and managed by a private company. Airglades Airport in Clewiston, Fla., has had its preliminary program application approved and is currently negotiating a deal with a private operator.

The first airport to operate under the program was Stewart International Airport near Newburgh, N.Y., which participated from March 2000 to October 2007, operated by a United Kingdom-based company. The airport is now operated by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.

However, Dock said privatization of airport operations is more common than one might think.

“Gary, Ind., is in the process right now, even as we speak,” Dock said. “They announced last week they are working out a management agreement with a company much like what we’re trying to do in Toledo.”

Questions

Paul Toth is President and CEO of the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority. Toledo Free Press photo by Joseph Herr

Russell Mills, an assistant professor of political science at Bowling Green State University, wrote his master’s degree thesis on airport privatization and previously worked in Washington, D.C., as a policy analyst for the FAA.

“There are quite a few things that have been omitted from the discussion, namely the fact that because the airport has received federal grant funds, they are prohibited from using airport revenue for non-airport purposes, such as the distribution of profit without FAA approval,” Mills said.

“All the money that is collected on an airport — landing fees, terminal rent — has to stay at the airport for airport use only. That is key. It’s up to the FAA to determine if they will allow you to use the money off-airport,” Mills said. “That’s why there has not been much full privatization of airports in the U.S.”

Mills’ thesis concluded that all the regulations and restrictions placed on airports as part of the FAA’s Airport Improvement Program make it difficult for private-sector operators to make a profit and for public-sector owners to have influence or control over the operations. Also, if the private sector firm fails or goes bankrupt, the public sector operator may have to reassume control of the airport, potentially incurring a loss.

“There’s a lot of financial risk on this from both ends,” Mills said.

The Treeces have said they are interested in discussing the options that exist for purchasing or selling nearby parcels of land.

“We wanted the option because, down the road, if we get viable tenants to come in who need to buy pieces of property that are referred to as not critical for aviation, we wanted to be able to buy from the city and turn around and resell that property to a private entity that would want to build a facility and operate it near the airport,” Dock said.

“The best way to get more revenue in an airport is to have more service running through it,” Mills said. “What can the Treeces do to bring more air service to Toledo Express? I’m curious what their plans are for air service development, more so than what they are going to do with the land.”

“[Their plan] might be perfectly sound, but these are the questions that need to be asked and answered.”

Toledo attorney leading effort to amend law that keeps disabled from suing airlines

More than a year has passed since a US Airways official told Johnnie Tuitel he was too disabled to fly.

He said recovering from the humiliation took months. The motivational speaker — who has racked up half a million miles traveling across North America — balanced depression with countless media interviews. Speaking engagements dwindled because venues assumed he wouldn’t be able to make the trip.

Simultaneously, he took calls from at least 70 families who had similar stories. A woman with a disability missed a job interview when officials took her off the flight from Wisconsin to Texas. A boy with a terminal blood disorder missed his last vacation because staff removed him from the plane. A family heard a pilot refer to their daughter as “a retard,” complaining that he didn’t want her on board.

Tuitel wondered, though, why he had not heard from a lawyer. When he met Toledo-based attorney Mark Skeldon he learned why. Tuitel can’t sue.

The law

The Air Carrier Access Act, passed by Congress in 1986, was designed to protect people with disabilities. The law asserts, among other things, that carriers may not refuse to fly people based on disabilities and may not limit the number of people with disabilities on board.

Airlines may refuse to fly someone if officials deem the person a health or safety risk, or if the needs of that individual violate the Federal Aviation Administration or foreign government safety rules. For example, a quadriplegic who could not evacuate the plane in case of emergency might be considered a safety risk. These assessments are made on an individual basis, said Steve Lott, spokesperson for Airlines for America. The organization often speaks on behalf of a number of airlines, including Delta.

From Left, Laura Folsom, Johnnie Tuitel and Mark Skeldon.

People with disabilities can file a complaint with the Department of Transportation if they feel discriminated against. The department reviews the complaints, often rolls them in with others and imposes a fine on the airline if officials determine the company violated the law. The money goes to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, said Bill Mosley, a spokesperson with the department.

But the law says nothing about the right to take private cause of action – or, to sue. Although there is no clause prohibiting private legal action, the last three district court rulings have concurred that the omission means individuals do not have that right.

The 11th Circuit Court ruled in a 2002 case that judges ought not imply that the right exists without a definitive mention in legislation.

“Without it, a cause of action does not exist and courts may not create one, no matter how desirable that might be as a policy matter, or how compatible with the statute,” the court decision reads.

Precedent makes it difficult for other lower courts to rule differently. And the U.S. Supreme Court would likely not take the case until another district court disagreed, Skeldon said.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was revised in 2009 to include a clause about private cause of action, said Nathan Facey, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur’s deputy chief of staff. But Tuitel can’t invoke the ADA, because the Air Carriers Access Act usurps that on airplanes.

It’s a policy problem that allows people with disabilities to fall through the cracks, Tuitel said.

“It bothers me that there is a law in which its purpose is to protect people with disabilities and it doesn’t,” Skeldon said. “Not as well as it should.”

The fight

If Skeldon, Tuitel and his girlfriend Laura Folsom have anything to do about it — the law eventually will. Skeldon and Tuitel met in September and have been busy planting a grassroots campaign to convince legislators to put a clause about private cause of action on the books. Folsom and Tuitel are working on the blueprints for a nonprofit called the Disabilities Leadership Network that would promote their cause.

The clause’s absence has forced disenfranchised airline clients to get crafty. Seventeen people with disabilities banded together against 10 airlines in 2004. de La O, Marko, Magolnick & Leyton, the Florida-based law firm representing the group sued the airlines under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits discrimination based on disability within programs that use federal dollars.

In 2001, airlines received a total of $15 billion in bailout grants and loan guarantees. This, the lawyers argued, made the airline industry a program that uses federal funding, said Charles Ferguson, an attorney in the law office.

But that didn’t work, either. The District Court of Southern Florida ruled against them.

Tuitel said gaining the definitive right to sue isn’t about money, but is about empowering individuals to hold airline officials accountable.

United Cerebral Palsy, an organization that educates and advocates for people with cerebral palsy, has heard all too often the trials of boarding an airplane with a disability.

“Removing a person with a disability from an airplane is both a basic civil rights issue and an equal opportunity issue,” said Chris Thomson, vice president of corporate affairs, in an email. “There is no way our society can move forward if someone is considered ‘too something’ to travel on an airplane.”

Making changes at the Congressional level could be tough. Congress could potentially amend the Air Carrier’s Access Act while approving the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Bill. That is a bill that needs to be renewed every five years. However, Congress is two and a half years behind and there are so many contentions wrapped up in the legislation that a single congressperson bringing up the private clause amendment would likely go nowhere, Facey said.

Testifying before a committee would likely work best, he said.

Tuitel and Skeldon have been in contact with Kaptur’s office.

Kaptur wrote in an email that it troubles her that the number of disability-related complaints have risen 23 percent in one year.

“We simply must do more to protect the rights of individuals with disabilities and allow those who have had their rights violated to seek redress from the offending airline,” Kaptur wrote. “It is what is right and what is fair.”

The penalties

The department of transportation fielded 21,001 disability-related complaints in 2010. According to complaint logs, airline employees refused to board 209 passengers based on an array of disabilities, with the bulk of these clients being oxygen-dependent and 20 of them wheelchair bound.

Other common complaints include the airline’s failure to provide aid to customers who have trouble seeing or hearing, those who are quadriplegic, use a wheelchair or are mentally impaired.

Four airlines were slapped with fines in 2011. Delta Airlines had to pay the most — $2 million for a slew of “egregious” violations, as noted in the consent order. Atlantic Southeast Airlines was ordered to pay $200,000, Mesaba Aviation had to cough up $125,000 and Icelandair Group had to part with $30,000.

Nicholas Dainiak

The Delta fine provoked the company to make some changes, including investing tens of millions of dollars to equip facilities to better accommodate people with disabilities, according to the mitigations in the consent order.

The unpredictable flight

New Hampshire resident Chris Dainiak is following Tuitel’s pursuit for personal reasons. His 8-year-old son Nicholas was diagnosed with Batten Disease in 2008. That year, Chris and Heather Dainiak learned that this nervous system disorder would render their child weaker as he grew older, both physically and mentally. Nicholas didn’t exhibit any signs of illness until he was 4 years old, when he started having seizures.

As the disease progressed, the young boy needed more help moving around. Now he uses a special car seat to maintain a comfortable posture because he cannot hold himself up well.

Flying had never been a problem before Dec. 23. That’s when the family boarded their plane to head home after a trip to Disney World. After other passengers boarded, a flight attendant approached the Dainiaks and pointed out that Nicholas’ seat was not FAA approved.

Dainiak said that a supervisor told his family that they had to either get off the plane or relinquish the car seat.

“So there were 130 passengers on there and everyone’s witnessing this and they’re delaying the flight for take-off,” he said. “There was no other way to do this unless we physically (held) him up for three hours.”

And that is what Chris and Heather did.

Because the family had flown to Disney World with the same airline and without problems, Dainiak sees this not as an airline company problem, but as an issue with a lack of streamlined policies issue. Flying with a disability has unpredictable outcomes, he said, with the right to stay on board left to the “whim” of the flight attendant and discretion of the pilot.

“If the airlines were aware that they would be held responsible in a court by a jury that would look at all the evidence and determine whether someone was wronged or not,” he said. “Then they would have to look very carefully about the policies they put in place about arbitrary behavior.”